Xants assistants stood behind him as he took those firsts steps into the enclosure, their subject stood before them, straight, shoulders back and its hands folded neatly in front. Those unnerving blue eyes staring at him as he approached, its lips tightened in a toothless sulin smile. Xant made his approach, ensuring not to get too close as to frighten or disturb it, but it was clear it had been waiting for them.
The creature bowed its head.
It raised a hand to its covered chest and spoke to them.
It was two toned, a pleasant melody, but clearly a single word.
“******”
It repeated the phrase once more, clearly and slowly before turning her hand to gesture at Xant.
It was attempting communication a name or a greeting perhaps? Xant felt it was only respectful to reciprocate. He raised his hand to his own chest and greeted their new guest.
“Hello.”
His translator broadcast his speech out into the open air for the subject to hear.
It responded positively, the Doctor supposed, repeating the greeting Xant had spoken with a toothy smile. Perhaps these interviews would go smoother than he anticipated, even without the indicative Frequency pulses he relied upon.
He folded his hands behind his back and nodded his head, turning to walk out of the enclosure.
He didn’t close the door behind him though and hoped the creature had enough sense to follow behind him. It did follow him, but Xant held up his hand for it to stop as they stepped out into the decontamination chamber.
Demonstrating what to do, he held out his arms and the machine was quite to perform its duties. A quick, sterilising spray later, the doctor was allowed to step beyond and into the facility.
“Decontamination complete” it chimed.
The creature looked a little wary, but was quick to imitate Xants actions, closing its eyes and, curiously holding its breath at the spray began to clean off any unwanted debris and residue build up on its body.
It let out more than one surprised yelp as the jets pressure washed the plant woven material from its body. It shakily stepped out of the decontaminator, holding its arms to keep a little modesty.
It stopped to stare at everything now that it was inside the facility proper, and its eyes lingered once it fell upon the assistants. It’s eyes were almost popping out of its head at the sight of Foorlan and Vuulsi, pausing to look at both of them.
Foorlan had her Dataslate open, commenting notes as she went.
“Subject has attempted to make contact, simple verbal phrases. Subject is quick to pick up non-verbal cues. Subject makes eye contact-”
“Sudjeck?” It spoke, unnerving everyone in the room. Foorlan gulped and continued her notes.
“Subject has keen hearing, Subject also can mimic words-”
“Sudject?” it repeated again then pointed to itself “Sudject?”
Foorlan held her dataslate tighter and took a step back.
Xant could feel how tense in the room it had become.
“Vuulsi, Foorlan, Fen, I shall continue alone from here” He instructed.
“Yes doctor,” Vuulsi replied as her and the others slunk out of the room, happy to be dismissed from assignment.
Xant was not worried.
The creature has not shown any sort of aggression, in fact, it had a rather mild and placid temperament. Should the worst come to pass he knew he could handle himself, he had restrained larger more aggressive beasts before.
Xant had a fabricator waiting, ushering the shivering creature to step into it and perform the same open armed stance as it had in the previous machine.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
It reluctantly obeyed. Closing its eyes again as the scanners lasers did one brisk scan.
It seemed surprised when the machine beeped upon completion.
Xant reached into the delivery compartment and pulled out the citizen skin for it to wear. A simple covering, but one that would be far more acceptable than the grass skirt it had been wearing.
He placed the skin on the table for it.
It looked between the skin and the doctor, tried to say a few words but faltered. Either releasing the task at hand or remembering they still were not on audible communication terms Xant did not know. It lifted and inspected the skin, searching for its access point. It turned its back to Xant, another instance of modesty he proposed as it began to slip on the outfit.
It was form fitting, but once sealed it seemed to relax in his presence. Spinning around to stare at him for further instructions.
He gestured for it to follow him to the interview room. A small empty room close to the enclosures, it was not the ‘proper’ interview room, Xant was not ready to release the Subject amongst the rest of the facility. It was makeshift but it would do.
To his pleasant surprise the creature didn't need to be told to sit on the stool opposite him. It sat with its legs together, manipulators folded in its lap, continuously staring at him, attentively so.
Xant took his seat and pulled out the dataslate. It had a simple illustration programme, touch screen and four colours. It was more or less a toy for Users and smaller younglings but the creatures expression through graphics was proven enough that communication could begin there. Without a natural Frequency pulse they would have to start from scratch.
Xant demonstrated how to draw and clear the screen before before sliding it over.
The Subject took to it immediately.
Its fingers were graceful, sliding across the surface with precision and purpose.
It reproduced the numbers from the enclosure dirt floor, before placing it on the table, turning it to face the doctor and pushed it toward him. Waiting expectantly.
Xant reached for the image with a simple press he saved the image to the dataslates memory and cleared the canvas.
The Subject made a second entry, this time what Xant suspected was an alphabet. And a fairly complex one at that, 48 larger symbols grouped together in pairs, then several smaller syntax symbols. It had even given an example sentence using as much of the symbols as it could.
Xant took a moment to study the creature as it waited for his response. Numbers, alphabet, vocal communication, it wanted to find an understanding without freq and it was exhausting any means necessary.
They would have to go through the alphabet together and find correlation sounds to symbols, a process that could take [weeks], [months] considering how involved the alphabet seemed to be, and without another native speaker there would be no way to derive patterns for the computers to analyse.
He saved the alphabet and gave her another empty canvas, its features twisted, and after a moment of deliberation it began its next drawing.
Numbers and alphabets were, by nature, distinct and sacrosanct. When the next picture was ready, it placed it on the table and pushed it towards him, but as he reached to pick it up the subject stood from its stool to stand beside him, staring over his shoulder. Xant didn't dare move, but the creature made no attempt to touch him, simple stood over his shoulder and stared while he appraised the image. It was an impressive diagram of the subjects internal organs, the attention to detail was astounding. He took longer, examining the picture and recalling its accuracy from the scans in the initial examination. Such knowledge indicated a higher education and understanding than most Modifier species in the council.
Xant was beginning to realise just how special it, no, SHE was.
The Doctor went to save the image and reset the dataslate screen for her to continue onto the next picture. The Subject made a pleasant two tone noise, before retaking her seat opposite and picking up the dataslate continuing on with her work. But this time she was taking time with the next picture.
Elegant fingers slid on the dataslate canvas with a furious diligence. After a few minutes Xant rose from his seat, the Subject responded immediately. She muttered something in its tongue then placed the dataslate back on the table, waiting for his inspection.
Xant inquisitively picked up the dataslate, the Subject had not only continued to draw but saved the images herself and continued to make more. She had added twelve new images to the library, all of them more detailed images of the body. A dissection of the eye, the double lungs and kidneys, bones in the hands then he came to the brain.
There was TWO of them squeezed into the calcium casing, it appeared to be split in half and joined at the base. How in the universe any sentient creature could evolve in such a way was a great and intriguing mystery. Xant placed the dataslate back on the table for her.
He made himself comfortable.
She was hesitant to pick the dataslate up, so he tried a different approach. He mimicked the two tone noise she had made earlier and it seemed to set her at ease. She returned to the dataslate to make more images.
She was determined now, trying to impress the Doctor with drawing after drawing. Soon she began to express knowledge beyond basic biology. Astronomy, chemistry, botany, zoology, Xant noticed she drew pictures of many of the specimens they had retrieved from the stasis pods. They were all apart of her ecology, a single planet of untapped resources. Once she had run out of the sciences she began drawing more personal, cultural effects. Architecture, technology, examples of fashion and art, hours seemed to fly by as she poured her collective knowledge into the device.
He had been observing her etch out an example of a habitation floor plan when she went to save the image but, it failed. She handed him the dataslate, an error message had flashed across the screen.
Dataslate memory capacity reached.
Xant blinked his second eyelids.
That shouldn’t have been possible, a single dataslate was enough for most projects, but then single image retention was not as easily stored as audio.
He would need to get a translator for her as soon as possible, the chance to converse with a civilised subject was just too wonderful to ignore.